LCD to commemorate 60 years

MASERU — The Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) will commemorate 60 years of the “congress party movement” in Lesotho at a ceremony in Berea on Sunday.

The ceremony will be held in Khafung constituency, home of revered party founder Dr Ntsu Mokhehle who died on January 6, 1999.

The commemoration will also mark the end of national rallies by LCD leader Mothetjoa Metsing following the May 26 election that gave birth to the coalition government.

LCD secretary general, Keketso Rantšo, told the media Khafung was the ideal place to hold the event because it was the birthplace of “the founder of the congress movement in Lesotho and life president of the LCD”.

“We will begin the ceremony on Sunday at 7am by placing wreaths on Ntate Ntsu’s tomb at St Agnes, where there’ll also be a church service by the Anglican Church of Lesotho to mark the day,” Rantšo said.

“The LCD leader will be given the honour of being the first person to place a wreath on the tomb because he is the one leading the party after Ntate Pakalitha Mosisili’s departure. Metsing is Ntate Ntsu’s heir.”

Pakalitha Mosisili is the former prime minister and the main opposition Democratic Congress (DC) leader, who succeeded Mokhehle in the LCD in 1998.

However, after fifteen years in government and at the helm of the LCD, Mosisili quit the party in February and formed his own DC party after a fall-out with the party’s executive committee.

Rantšo said former LCD deputy leader Lesao Lehohla is also expected to place a wreath on Mokhehle’s tomb on behalf the LCD elders followed by members of the party’s executive committee.

She said the party had invited to the ceremony all congress parties, struggle veterans and members of the Lesotho Liberation Army.

“Leaders of all congress parties in Lesotho will also have the honour of placing wreaths on the tomb. The DC leader is also one of the people invited despite our bitter fall-out early this year,” Rantšo said.

Parties considered by the LCD to be those of the congress movement, Rantšo said, included the Lesotho People’s Congress, Basotho Congress Party, Democratic Congress and Basutoland African National Congress.